It's safe to say mother! was pretty damn polarising for a lot of people. In fact, it pretty much split this office in two with people either loving the intensity of it or utterly despising it - and it seems that's been borne out by audience reactions.
As we previously reported, mother! received the dreaded CinemaScore of F and figures released from BoxOfficeMojo confirm that only now - four weeks after release - has the film recouped its production budget. So far, mother! has only managed to make $2 million more globally than it did in the US, with $16,659,865 from home and $18,977,225 abroad for a total of a little over $35 million.
mother! was made on a budget of $30,000,000, and while the promotional and advertising budget remains a closely guarded secret, it's quite likely that it cost the same amount - if not more - of the production budget. Despite all this, however, Paramount's chief of worldwide distribution and marketing, Megan Colligan, defended the film's wide release in an interview with The Wrap.
"We wanted it to go off like a bomb and let everyone see it, and feel it and debate it — to kind of have at it," said Colligan. "Typically speaking with art movies, it’s the big city sophisticates that get it. As markets get quote-unquote ‘less sophisticated,’ the movies become more of a challenge. That’s not the case with ‘mother!’ There are people all over the country who love it, and there are people in the sophisticated markets who love it less.”
It's hard to know precisely why mother! failed, as there's enough star-power and talent behind it - but anyone's who seen the film knows that it has a sharp and polarising effect on people, and that translates into either negative or positive word-of-mouth.
Did you see mother! and, if so, what did you make of it? Let us know in the comments!
Via BoxOfficeMojo / The Wrap